' Despite their centrality, Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems, and traditional knowledge and practices are undervalued and under unprecedented risk of disappearance. One of the main challenges is that Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems, and traditional knowledge and practices are either misunderstood or unknown, which often result in incomplete or inadequate policy tools. To this end, it is critical to establish a political willingness and leadership to increase Indigenous People's participation in the policy making processes. "
The above statement to a large degree encompasses the challenges faced by both indigenous food systems as well as by actors involved in food production systems, that are not falling into the category of "indigenous food systems" (e.g. "modern agriculture technologies and practices" ) in as much as they are not aware of or appreciate the contribution of such traditional systems to sustainable food systems worldwide, particularly when it comes to specific landscape utilization for sustainable food production.
At the core of appreciation or lack thereof of such systems in the modern age are our "value systems". It is becoming increasingly apparent as evidenced by this discussion and policy formulation paper that the role and importance of Indigenous peoples food and knowledge systems are increasingly important to humanity as a whole and as such need to be protected, preserved and kept alive , not only for their intrinsic value but also for their value to humanity as a whole from a range of perspectives, cultural, scientific, environmental to name a few.
A lack of knowledge, appreciation, awareness and poor understanding of the role and link between nature, indigenous food systems and utilizations of landscapes have led "modern agriculture and food production systems" too often overlook the contribution of indigenous food systems and in many cases to ignore them entirely, when in fact they are often the most appropriate system to be adopted under the specific landscape use practice ( e.g. Arid and Semi-Arid lands -Pastoralism is often the best land use practice for food production). As a specific example among many, would be the role of pastoralists and their indigenous knowledge operating in harsh and challenging environments, which in many cases proves to be the best utilization of that particular landscape, as opposed to trying to turn marginal lands, grazing lands into arable production etc., or adopting policies at Government level that make it more difficult for such indigenous systems to survive.
These traditional systems have evolved over generations and have shown considerable resiliency, primarily because the actors understand the landscape, are in tune with it and have adopted practices to mitigate risks and shocks to ensure the system sustains. With the advent of modern agriculture and with the misguided policy, or lack thereof and with constraints on mobility among other factors in the case of pastoralist systems it has increased challenges to the system.
Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that the value of such systems from both an economic and socio- cultural and socio-economic aspects far outweigh the risks in losing such systems, hence the need for the adoption of appropriate policy and protection measures for such systems and their traditional knowledge practices and increased agency for its practitioners.
先生 John McCormack